Kindle
by Crabapplered
Summary: In a world of darkness, a crazed madman kindles a dangerous, bloody taboo of a new life. Unless it's stopped, the machinations of its creator and the surrounding city will all eventually burn with the Holy Flame, and only Asch will be left behind.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

Jade's notes are a maze of shorthand and code, arcane diagrams deliberately sabotaged and false symbolism liberally mixed in.

But Dist can read it. Dist can read anything given enough time, can out-do anything Jade can as well. Hasn't he, too, managed to escape death's grip, despite Jade refusing to share that first sip of immortality? Hasn't he mastered the secrets of blood and flesh as well as Jade ever did?

Yes.

No.

Better! Clearly he's better. Hasn't he crafted the most elegant of szlachta, servants vigilant as spiders and loyal as dogs who even now scurry about on his bidding? Hasn't he woven the most intricate of vozhd, titanic mosaics of flesh and souls to crash through the enemy lines and devour the unbelievers? Hasn't he given himself the most beautiful of faces, a body of slender lines and refined carriage to overshadow the common prettiness that Jade has chosen?

Yes, and yes, and yes again. He's done all of this and more. Blossomed in his eternity and claimed his rightful place as a Bishop in Cain's army!

And now, this.

His subject stirs weakly on Table One, groggy and limp from the forced draining of blood. Dist grabs it by the throat and plies open one of its eyelids, humming in pleasure when iris the bright green of a thallium flame thin and black pupil dilates under the light. He levers open its mouth next and tugs on a canine, extending the fang to its full length. Lets go and watches it retract.

"Physical reflexes are normal. Good, good. Excellent! And let's see . . ." He adjusts his spectacles, those magical lenses that bring the world into focus, and pages through the layers of reality to peer into his subject's soul. " A little charred, but no more than to be expected from the cauterization process. Nothing that won't heal over with time! Wonderful~! Now for the results . . . "

He turns to the great tank in the corner. It is made of glass and bronze and glittering steel because that is what you make that sort of thing out of. Dist has carved all the right alchemical symbols into its frame and painted on warning signs, hung little informative plaques on the wall and attached all manner of tubes. It looks very scientific which can only have helped the process.

_It should have had Tesla coils,_ whisper the voices of doubt. _Everyone knows you've got to have Tesla coils._

Nonsense. Only tradition-bound fuddy-duddies like Jade want to stick to boring things like Tesla coils and alphabetical indexing and blue phosphorescence. Dist is an innovator, a cutter of brave new paths! Valves are much more modern, candles more atmospheric, and if his machine glows scarlet in the dark of the room, so much the better since it matches the rich vitea used for his creation.

Besides, he's already tried Tesla coils. Boring. And the results are. . . less than ideal.

He peers into the murky blood, past the snips and the snails and the puppy dog tails, to the little boy he's made. The body's a perfect copy of the subject on Table One right down to that ridiculous flow of scarlet hair, but the life inside the shell. . . that's all new.

Dist taps on the glass. "Time to wake up, my perfect creation! You've slept long enough."

Fingers twitch, then muscles flex. And slowly, slowly the eyes open to show irises of thallium green.

"And good evening to you . . . Luke," purrs Dist.

**Chapter One**

Only a few stars manage to stab their glitter past the sullen glow of city lights, and the moon is nothing more than the face of a ghost, veiled by cloud cover. The air is muggy, heavy with the promise of summer storms. It makes the guard dogs twitchy, quick to snarl and bite, makes the humans pluck at their clothing as humidity and sweat turns sharp suits and uniforms into sodden burdens. Everything feels too hot, too heavy, too thick.

But Luke is sparking. Eyes bright, body tense, eager smile sloppy with fangs that have slipped out despite his best efforts because tonight is a night of training with Master Van. And that, as far as Luke is concerned, makes everything else irrelevant.

Everybody thinks Luke is way too into this. Mother and Guy treat him like a little kid, like it's cute that he's so excited every time Master Van sets foot on the property. The Seneschal thinks it's an embarrassment to shed dignitas over the arrival of anyone of lower station, especially one who shows up so regularly. And the servants think he's a total moron. As loyal as they are to his mother, ghouled and blood bound and obedient in every beat of their hearts, they still look at him with contempt in their eyes when he smiles at Master Van's arrival.

After all, Master Van comes pretty much every night so it's not exactly special, right? They think Luke should get used to it. They think he should get bored.

None of them understand.

None of them had to put up with the pitying looks as they relearned how to walk, how to run. None of them had to figure out how to move each finger in time so they could put on their clothing and tie their own shoes and brush their own hair as their Sire cried in the other room, heartbroken over how stupid her Childe had become and trying so hard not to show it.

Sometimes, in a dark and quiet room, Luke can still hear the whispers from those times: _'what could have happened?'_ and _'he's nothing like he used to be'_ and _'nothing like he should be.'_

_'There's just something_ wrong _about him now . . .'_

Master Van changed all that for Luke.

Master Van taught him how to move without tripping or bumping into things, how to run fast enough to keep up with the dogs, how to make his arms and legs do exactly what he tells them to and no more. He taught Luke acrobatics and hand to hand, and weapons work with machete and knife out on the back lawn. Slow stretches and flexibility and . . . other things when alone together in the training room. He's even taught Luke dancing, holding him close against his broad chest as he patiently coaxes Luke to move in time to the sound of violins and piano.

It's thanks to Master Van that Luke can climb trees and peer out over the walls and into the wide world far away. It's thanks to Master Van that Luke can tumble and wrestle with the dogs. It's thanks to Master Van that Luke can dodge around Guy in games of keep-away. It's thanks to master Van that all those whispers stopped.

Master Van . . . Master Van gave him _everything._

Every new lesson is a treasure to hoard forever which is why Luke always gives Master Van his full attention, stokes his concentration to a roaring flame inside him that burns away any distractions. So when Master Van's sleek white car rolls through the front gate Luke is already leaning out of the library window, tense and waiting, receptive.

The driver's side door opens, and out steps a broad shouldered vampire in a grey tracksuit, his sneakers crisply white and his wild brown hair pulled back and up in a messy tail.

Luke catches the scent of his Master wafting up from below and shivers. Van's rich tang of steel mixes with the sweet-sour spice of human sweat, with the hot meat smell of human blood: Master Van's fed already, and Luke squirms against the window ledge imagining the heat of the elder vampire's body, the stolen warmth he shares in secret sips with Luke when they're tucked into a corner of the practice room, Master Van's lips wet and crimson, bitten with his own fangs so Luke can feed with soft, pretty kisses.

Maybe they'll do that tonight.

"Master Van!" he crows. Waves frantically from his window perch and beams when Master Van looks up. "What am I learning this time?"

Master Van smiles up at him, a kind of warmth in his amazing teal eyes that Guy and Mother are the only other ones to show Luke. "Hopefully some better unarmed blocking. You're far too sloppy with your guard, and I've grown tired of having a student so careless with his personal safety. We'll be drilling on that for the foreseeable future until you stop being so useless at it."

Luke winces but doesn't protest - Master Van is the only one who talks to him like that, the only one who criticizes and teaches and takes for granted that Luke will learn if shown why and how. Everyone else. . .

He pushes those memories away. No point in looking back. He's past that now, and only getting better!

Right?

"Get changed," Master Van commands. "I'll meet you out on the lawn once I've properly greeted your Sire."

"Yes, Master!"

He'd have been changed already if the Seneschal had let him, but Luke is pushing it enough by greeting Master Van from the window instead of the parlour. Any more and the rigidly correct vampire would have gone to Mother, and that would mean lectures on the importance of dignitas and all that shit. Luke can put up with that, but the disappointed look on his Mother's face when he fails, yet again, to match up with what he had once been is something he can totally live without, so he greets his Master from the window and then bolts for his room where his tracksuit is laid out and waiting.

He rushes down the long halls of his Mother's manor, his hair a long red flag flying behind him, the maids bowing like trees in the wind and the guards' sunglassed stares flickering up and around like startled birds as he jogs past. They're so much a part of this unchanging landscape that Luke doesn't even notice anymore, and anyways the Seneschal will ride his ass if he thinks Luke's taking too much notice of 'the help' again.

It only gets takes a few minutes to get changed out of the button-ups and slacks that the Seneschal makes him wear and into his own white and red tracksuit, toe off the leather loafers and lace up his own white sneakers, and then rushing down the great wooden curl of stairs to the ground floor and out the back door.

* * *

><p>Master Van always spends a few minutes with Luke's Sire before lessons, so Luke has the lawn to himself for a little while.<p>

What this really means is that the guards are tucked into discreet pools of shadow, their compact SMGs painted mat black so as not to reflect in the night, the dogs kept close at their heels.

Well, whatever. It's been like this as long as Luke can remember.

Which really just means seven years.

Luke winces away from that truth. Mother and Guy call it 'amnesia', but Luke's heard the servants call it 'brain damage' when they think he's not around and he knows it's what most people think when they find out how little he's like what he should be.

But even brain damage doesn't explain away some of the things wrong about him now. He tongues his fangs and sighs, turns toward the manor. The door swings open right on time, and Guy, the family handyman, comes out with Luke's meal.

Whatever was done to Luke seven years ago when he was abducted, it did more than just rip away his memories. It damaged his very self as a vampire, took from him the Kiss that should have let him feed from humans without struggle. His bite doesn't bring pleasure now - only pain and fear and death, because his bites wont heal over, either.

He still remembers the one and only time his mother had coaxed him to feed from a live mortal. He's sunk his teeth into olive skin and felt the fire in his belly roar with sudden hunger, and the boy had stiffened in Luke's arm and screamed and screamed. . .

So instead Guy brings it to him every evening in a bright red coffee mug, wide and deep, the kind humans use for lattes. Like it's juice, maybe. Like Luke is one of the family ghouls, a human fed vitae to keep him pliant and young.

"Breakfast," Guy says with his usual bright smile. "Nice and fresh, so drink it before it gets cold, alright? Then you can do your stretches."

"Yeah, yeah." He takes the cup carefully in hand and sips. Shudders.

Other vampires have talked to him about the Beast caged within, about the Hunger that's forever gnawing at their control, but for Luke there is only fire. Great, roaring flames in his belly that dance and burn and try to sear away at him from the inside, a heat that can only be tamed with another's life. The warm blood goes down his throat and into his gut, and he feels the memories trapped in its flow -the feelings and wishes and dreams of a human- wrap themselves around his core. The flame inside him mellows into pleasant heat, and he licks the mug of the last traces of soothing red life.

Guy takes the mug back. Chuckles. "Hang on. You've got a blood moustache." He reaches out and catches Luke's chin, leans in.

His tongue is very wet as it laps the blood from Luke's upper lip, and Luke shudders again, this time in almost-memory. Guy might technically be the handyman, but over the years he's grown into something like Luke's valet. Guy's helped Luke do everything from brush his hair to bathe, his touch impersonal and gentle, and he's certainly never done anything like Master Van has. But there's something about his tongue on Luke's skin that brings up memories of being undressed, of the hot press of a leg between Luke's thighs.

Not that Guy seems to think these things. His smile is the same sunny grin as always when he pulls away, and he ruffles Luke's hair affectionately without the lingering touch Master Van would use. "You have a good practice. I've gotta check on Her Ladyship's car this evening so I won't be able to watch over you, but if you need anything-"

Luke bats Guy's hand away. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I just need to scream for you. Geeze, we do this every time, Guy. Stop treating me like a little kid."

"As Your Highness wishes," he says in that cheerful tone he uses to ignore Luke's demands.

He saunters back into the manor and Luke has far too much time to notice how tight Guy's jeans are, how the loose billow of his work shirt can't hide the lean strength of his body. The scent of him lingers in the night air, motor oil and harsh soap, and Luke's fangs lengthen, ache in time to his half-hard penis.

He pushes his fangs back into place with his thumbs, glances furtively toward the guards. He knows he's not supposed to feel this way toward Guy - the Seneschal will have a fit - but Master Van's teaching is hard to put aside. Getting reflexes drilled into you for seven years will do that.

Still, now's not the time for that. If he lets himself stay worked up he won't be able to concentrate on Master Van's lesson, and that's unforgivable. He trots out into the centre of the lawn, intent on burning the need out of himself with stretches and warm-ups.

"Stop favouring your left! You should be ambidextrous in your blocking!"

Luke's muscles ache, a burn in his arms and legs, a vicious smoulder in his shoulders, and bright blossoms of pain where Master Van's hits have gone through his guard. He grits his teeth against it and makes his concentration into a living thing, feeds it his determination, his pride, and it flares up inside him and devours everything else. There is nothing but the semi-trance of combat now, the lightning quick flicker of blows exchanged and blocked between himself and his Master.

So when the sound of singing drifts out across the lawn he ignores it, no matter how the words nag at him, try to fool him into thinking they're familiar even though he's never heard them before. He shakes his head to clear it, blinks twice and sees Master Van signal a halt.

"That singing . . . " murmurs Master Van. He sways, staggers, clutches his head.

Luke darts forward to steady him. "Master?"

Master Van isn't paying attention to Luke, though - he's looking back toward the manor. "Tear," Master Van gasps weakly, swooning in Luke's grip.

Luke staggers under his Master's weight, trying desperately to support him and turn to meet the threat. He's just in time to see a slender woman in brown dashing across the lawn with something raised in her hands.

He drops Master Van and counters purely through instinct. The heavy thwack of his hand slapping away her arm sends reverb through his body, and his eyes go round and horrified as he realizes this woman's got a stake in her hand.

Is she . . . here to kill master Van?

The woman, a long haired brunette in a brown sweater dress is plainly as surprised as Luke is, her pretty face twisted in frustration and confusion. She tries to dart around him to get to Master Van and she's fast, very fast, but not faster than the dogs Luke's tumbled with since his memories begin. He keeps pace with her and drives her back. He's not strong enough to actually hurt her, but he's enough to keep her back.

Her song hangs in the air around them making Luke's ears ring, making it hard to think past the next blow. Thwack, thwack! and still Luke won't let this weird chick get by because Master Van is collapsed on the grass and Luke's his only defence.

The woman is still singing but her words are starting to falter. Luke's head is starting to clear and he's beginning to notice that none of the dogs are coming, none of guards are coming, and where is Guy? He needs Guy! "Guy!" Luke screams. "Guy, where are you?"

"Dammit," the woman mutters. She makes a last, desperate lunge at Master Van and Luke snaps his hand at her wrist as she overextends: the stake goes flying. The woman staggers back and, with a last angry look at Van, starts sprinting for the manor.

Luke hesitates only a moment. The servants and guards and Guy will care for Master Van - only Luke can chase down this woman.

His legs stretch out into a ground-eating lope, arms pumping, fangs bared, red hair streaming behind him. They flit across the lawn and straight into the manor, scrambling for purchase on the polished wood floors of the long halls and careening around corners until they're out the foyer and pelting down the front walk where Luke's never been allowed to play to the front gate and past it.

It doesn't register to Luke, who's got eyes only for slender form of Master Van's would-be assassin disappearing down the road, but there it is: they've run right out the door of Luke's world and into the city beyond.


	2. Chapter 2

At twenty one years a vampire, Gailardia is still young enough to remember the true sleep of mortality, to remember the grogginess of waking, the confusing mess of dreams fading too slowly from the mind.

But remembering it doesn't make it any easier to shake off, and for long, long moments he floats in a haze of false memories and imaginings, adrift in his personal sea of whimsy.

And then a woman starts screaming and the leviathan that is reality rises up inside him, a horrific beast of clotted blood and dead hands reaching for him, vacant eyes as empty as Gailardia's soul because his sister had screamed just like this when- when-

He jerks upright, awake and terrified, eyes so wide they hurt, fangs fully extended to attack and he's shaking and shaking and shaking.

He's in a garage.

He's in a garage and he's collapsed on the concrete floor, the cold of it nipping at him through his worn jeans despite the sullen heat of the night, a bright red Porsche to his left and his hands a mess of oil, the smell of gasoline hanging in the air and the woman is still screaming.

"Luke! _LUKE!_"

Luke.

Awareness rockets through Gailardia and he is now Guy, servant to Her Ladyship and the guardian of her Childe. He scrambles to his feet and pelts out of the garage, frantically trying to piece together the last few moments.

Singing. Someone had been singing - a woman? Yeah, it'd been a woman all right, in clear tones that rang through the night and set everything humming in tune, and she'd sung a lullaby that dragged Guy down into darkness, into the true sleep he hasn't known since he'd been Embraced.

He hadn't even had time to realize it was an attack, had been taken down like a rank amateur.

Her Ladyship's hysterical screaming morphs into a horrendous wail of loss, and he puts on another burst of speed, rounding the corner of the manor and staggering onto the back lawn. Luke had been training there with Van. If anyone could have kept him safe-

But no.

He's just in time to see the slender form of Her Ladyship collapse into the arms of the Seneschal. The dogs are skittering all across the lawn, armed security personnel slowly picking themselves off the grass. Van is there as well, tall and broad and face like a thundercloud.

And Luke is nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" he demands as he comes to stand by Van's side.

"They've taken him again~" moans Her Ladyship. "Luke, my poor Childe! Taken again! Again!"  
><em><br>__Abducted? It can't be!_ Guy glances at Van and receives a discreet shake of the head. _So this isn't a repeat performance, huh? Then what happened?_

"I don't believe that's the case, my Lady," Van is saying. "From what I saw of the fight before I succumbed, Luke was not her target."

The effect on Her Ladyship is instantaneous. She straightens in the Seneschal's grip, pushes him away and turns her tear-stained face to Van. "What do you mean? How can you be sure?"

"Luke defended me from the intruder as I was falling to her song. She was definitely not trying to attack him, but instead trying to get past him to me. Somehow," he adds slowly, "it seems he wasn't affected by her song."

"But- But then where is he?"

Guy snorts, easily guessing the answer to that. "No offence, Your Ladyship, but we all know Luke's a hothead. I'll bet the assassin retreated and Luke ran off after her."

There's a moment of silence, and you can see it when the image comes into their minds: Luke, out in the city. Arrogant, spoiled Luke in a place that won't respect his blood, that doesn't even believe in his existence. Sheltered, ignorant Luke out with the gangs and the killers, with the rival vampire cliques.

Luke, who's never been taught about the great Masquerade, the need to hide from humans.

Luke, who's so crippled and warped from his abduction he can't even feed discreetly.

"Oh God," Her Ladyship gasps. "Oh God."

This disaster has suddenly gone way beyond personal sorrow. Luke'd have been better off abducted - at least then he'd have been contained. But free to roam the city? He's no fledgling vampire, new to his powers and weak, timid. He's fully trained and lethal, and his head has been stuffed full of nonsense about his position as Her Ladyship's Childe. There's no telling what kind of trouble he could get into, from attracting the attention of Her Ladyship's enemies to catching the eye of a Hunter.

"He needs to be found immediately," the Seneschal says flatly.

"I'll go after him," Guy volunteers. "I know Luke best. I shouldn't have too much trouble tracking him. I can take Repede, too - he's the best tracker out of the dogs."

Van bows. "I will also search, My Lady."

The Seneschal raises an eyebrow. "I thought you had an appointment with the Prince."

"I'll send my regrets. This situation is too serious to ignore, and I'm partly responsible for having brought trouble into Her Ladyship's domain. Besides, Luke is a treasured student. I wouldn't wish anything to happen to him."

The Lady smiles at Van, and for a moment even Guy finds her beautiful - a fragile creature in her sage green dress and low kitten heels, her jade eyes glittering and wide. "Thank you, Van. I'll smooth things over with the Prince for you."

She can do it, too. She might look thirty at the oldest, but she's over four hundred years a vampire, and she's Primogen for clan Ventrue in the city. Very little happens in the world of business that Suzanne fon Fabre doesn't benefit from - she rules her people with a steady hand, and Guy knows better than anyone what happens to those who cross her.  
><em><br>__Bitch._

"My Lady," he says, bowing and excusing himself. He's got more important things to do than pick at old scabs.

* * *

><p>At first there is nothing but the chase. Luke sprints down the long line of asphalt after Master Van's mysterious attacker, his shoes pounding out a frantic rhythm. She leads him past cars and other manors, past sullen red lights, down the snaking trail of sidewalk and into the heart of the city.<p>

They go scrambling over chain link fences, through abandoned parks and up a rusted iron stairway that shakes with each step. They flit over rooftops and scatter pigeons in their wake, and though their speeds are matched exactly the assassin knows where she's going and Luke is simply a follower, a stranger in this land. Finally she dodges around a chimney and just . . . vanishes.

Luke scents the air and gets nothing but smog and gasoline and garbage, looks around frantically and finally takes in just where he is and suddenly, it hits him:

The world goes on _forever_.

Walls and gates and doors and bars abruptly mean nothing to him now because he's above them all, far, far away from his cage. There's nothing stopping him from running on and on and on and seeing if the world really is flat like in the stories Guy's read to him or round like his tutors insist.

He staggers to a halt. And, slowly, turns to look out over the city that he's somehow managed to escape into.

Auldrant spreads out around him, tiled with rooftops and forested with chimneys, with telephone poles, with TV antenna and water towers. Enormous coloured pictures -billboards, he'd only heard of them before now- are like bright flowers. Lampposts and neons trace glittering pathways, and far in the distance pale fingers of light wave back and forth against the dark sky, brushing against enormous towers of glass and concrete lit up from within: skyscrapers. And it goes on, and on, right to the horizon on every side, an endless landscape of humanity.

He'd thought- he'd thought he knew what 'big' was. It was the hollow of the empty ballroom, the great elm out back with its umbrella branches. It was the night above him when he lay on his back in the grass.

But even that piece of sky was small, he suddenly understands. He stumbles backwards, falling over himself to get away from the vastness around him, backs right into an old chimney. He leans against its worn brickwork, his knees weak, his hands clammy and cold. All thoughts of Master Van's would-be assassin vanish, swallowed up by city, by the infinite around him, by the terror at the realization that he is utterly, totally alone . . .

. . . and for the first time in his life, _lost_.

It takes him longer than he wants to admit to get the courage to climb down off that roof. The city is just so enormous, a vast ocean he's terrified of drowning in. But he knows he can't stay up there - night won't last forever, and he's got to get safely back inside the manor before dawn.

Getting back home isn't going to be easy, though.

The world outside the manor is confusing mess of roads and fences thrown up at random, a jumble of words on signs, numbers that skip about in odd sets. He can't understand any of it, and frustration and fear make his guts knot up. What's he's supposed to do? How's he supposed to get home? He's never had to find _himself _before. You just don't get lost living in the same house for seven years.

There are a few people here, skittering down the streets. They stare at him when he walks by, pull in on themselves and glare when he comes close. Weirded out and pissed at their attitude he starts to avoid them, taking roads with less and less people.

He wanders down along beside the lines of cars, past tall buildings with metal stairways going up their fronts like iron vines, past a fountain filled with garbage, past wooden fences with peeling paint and towers gone dark and empty. He tries following the numbers he sees by every door, going backwards down the list in hopes that if he gets to number one he'll find the start of everything, but all it does is lead him to more roads.

"What kind of dumbasses set this up?" he grumbles to himself.

He goes past 'Devoto's Grocery' and 'Launderette' and 'Sassy Massage', '422-2337' and 'Radiation Gate Electronics'. Windows are broken here and people decorate with laundry, stringing lines above the streets and hanging their pants and shirts like faded streamers. It doesn't look anything like the manor but he must be going in the right direction because there's more grass and greenery, skinny trees by the road and vines covering the fences, and the place with 'Din's Buy-And-Sell Used Finery' has bars over the windows just like back at home.

The street lights flicker in and out making the shadows dance and swell, and somewhere people are arguing, yelling at each other about how this is the last time, the very last. There's the sound of shattering glass and then - silence.  
><em><br>__Must have broken something. Tch. People here are really careless._ He sighs and rubs his chest. All his fire has long since burnt away in the chase and now he's left with nothing but embers and a slow, building hunger. He needs to get home soon - he needs to feed again.

He goes further and comes to a branch in the road, left and right and an overpass. His eyes catch the glint of unexpected colour underneath the last. Curious, he makes his way into the shadowed arch.

There's paint on the cement, bright colours and heavily stylized words he has to stop and puzzle out: 'DARK WINGS' 'exit to the left' 'Alice's Bitches' 'YES' 'pussy, money, sage' 'pEach PiE'. Bright shades of red and blue, green so bright it hurts his eyes, orange-gold that bleeds into violet. Animals and human faces, hand prints and arrows pointing to no-where. He traces black curlicues - an artist's signature?

"You like the pretty colours, baby?"

The voice jerks him out of his reverie just in time for a fist to ram itself into his jaw. He staggers, shakes the stars from his eyes. Braces himself against the cement wall and glares up at the bastard who who just suckered him.

It's worse than he thought. Quick headcount shows him seven guys, their bodies lean and muscled, their eyes heavy lidded and dead.

"This is Desian turf," the leader says. The dim light glints off his facial piercings, off the chains hanging from his wrists, his belt. "The fuck you doin' in it?"

"I'm lost, jackass," Luke snaps, gingerly exploring the damage to his face. Nothing that won't heal in a few minutes but still, what the hell? Who goes around just punching people like that?

He sucks in a breath to snarl the question, and with it comes the scent of his attackers.

Humans.

He so surprised he drops his guard and blurts out, "Are you guys retarded?" Because really, what human attacks a vampire? Especially him! "Don't you know who I am?"

The idiots trade lazy grins, elbow each other, snigger like it's some kind of big joke. "Okay. Okay, tell us," says one in the back. "Who are you?"

Luke frowns and crosses his arms. "I'm Luke fon Fabre, Childe of Susanne fon Fabre. You know, the Ventrue Primogen for this city? You might have heard of her. She's not exactly someone you wanna piss off."

They just stare at him blankly for a moment before one of them bursts out, "Wait, is that your mom your talking about? Are you telling us we shouldn't mess with you because of your _mommy_?"

"Fuck that," another chimes in. "I messed with your mom _last night_, and I bet you're just as much a pussy bitch as she was."

"That long hair makes him look it."

"So maybe we mess him up a bit. See if he's really a girl with no tits or just a faggot, yeah?"

The humans take a collective step forward and suddenly they look like nothing so much like the dogs at home, circling in on some unlucky squirrel they'll rip to blood and meat, but Luke is past being intimidated. Insults were the first thing he learned to write so he knows exactly what these pukes have just said about his Mother and it is beyond tolerating, never mind the garbage they said about him. "Try it," he says, and drops into guard position.

"Stu~pid. You gonna fight us?"

Switchblades magically appear in the humans' hands, chains are loosened from around waists and the meaty smack of fist into palm is the only signal given. Then they're on him, and it is fucking _ugly_ because they fight like the dogs they are, surging toward him as one. He kicks out and breaks a knee, punches another to send him staggering back with a bloody mouth and ruined teeth, but they're pilling onto him in a mess of grabbing hands and striking fists, and he goes under.

Knives. They have knives and they aren't shy with them, blades sinking into his ribs and thighs and one gets him in the face, an ugly cut from lips to ear. This isn't anything like fighting with Master Van, the weight of them crushing Luke to the asphalt and grinding in the relics of broken beer bottles and cigarette butts and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts and they've got no reason to do this, they're just doing it to hear him scream!

The embers in his guts flicker as the kerosene of pain and fear washes through his system, and rage makes them glitter and stir.

Roar to life.

_"GET OFF ME!"_ he howls.

And they do. Because he tosses them off like they're nothing more than puppies, a new strength burning inside himself. This is nothing like the stolen vitae his Mother feeds him, red blood from mortals that wraps his core in a rich cocoon of life. This is all his, a blistering, searing heat that makes the air around him crackle and snap, and the hot smell of ash and smoke chokes the air around him as he reaches for the leader.

There's nothing of Master Van's training and grace in what he does next, simply instinct: he tears the life from the nearest human with his fangs in its throat. Gulps the blood that gushes forth and spatters his front, his face, but the wetness can't hope to quench the inferno of his rage. The sheer heat of it makes the corpse splutter and smoke, and the remains that drop to the ground are half charred.

Luke turns to the rest of the pack, a huddled mass pinned down by terror. Eyes so wide irises seem shrunk in the sea of white all around them, mouths slack and weapons dropping from their fingers. Scared worse than he ever was but it's their fault, their own damn fault!

He lunges for them and they scatter, finding their voices at last in wailing shrieks and cusses. Doesn't matter - he's a vampire. He's faster, he's tougher, he's stronger. He knows it because everyone's always told him so, that humans are fragile creatures, and they were right.

But what they'd never told him was how good it was to kill them.

He tears the throats out of two more, snaps the neck of the third whose knee he'd broken. Three left and he runs them down, his turn to be the dog.

He breaks the spine and ribs of one of them with a tackle, puts his hand right through the chest of another, and the last he takes his time with, hurts him like he was hurt, pulling arms out of their sockets to fling away into the bushes and finally buries his fangs in bared throat and drinks his fill.

Swallow after heady swallow, and the human whimpers under him, sobs, and then dies. He sucks the last of life from it down to the very dregs. . . .

Until it turns to ash and char beneath him.

He pulls away and stares at the blackened face, distorted in a horrific grimace of agony even now. Touches it gingerly - it crumbles, breaks.

_Is it . . . supposed to do that?_

A new feeling starts to grow inside him as he looks around at what he's done. The blackened bodies, the grass that has yellowed and died, the footsteps charred right into the asphalt and smouldering still. Even the bright paint on the underpass has faded and cracked, started to peel away, and Luke is sure of it now: there is something really wrong here.

Something really wrong with what he's done.  
><em><br>__But I didn't have a choice. I- I didn't- They were gonna-_

Gurgling, choking sound. Weak movement. One of the humans is still alive.

It's the one who's ribs and spine Luke has destroyed. Hesitantly, Luke comes closer.

"Oh god oh god oh god oh god it hurts, fuck it hurrrts," it whimpers. And, "Can't feel my legs. Why the _fuck _can't I feel my goddamn legs?"

The smell of burnt meat is heavy in the air; the human's shirt where Luke grabbed it has been burnt away, the skin underneath reddened and blistered. Horrified but drawn in despite himself, Luke comes even closer, hand reaching out to touch the gruesome wreckage he's made of this creature.

Mistake. The human sees him and panics, fights frantically to move despite oozing blood and the flopping of broken bones. "You-! Stay- stay the fuck away from me you freak!" Its head rolls toward Luke, eyes wide and mad, blood foaming out from between the lips as it rants, "Freakin' fuckin' goddamn _monster_. What th'hell- what-." There's wetness running from its eyes as it hacks and coughs.

It's crying.

Fresh pain twists inside of Luke and he fights against it, frustrated and confused as to why he feels so terrible. "Who are you calling a monster? You're the one who attacked me first!"

It coughs wetly, more blood vomiting out and ruining its voice, "j'st wanted s'm fun. J'st wanted- wanted . . ."

"Shut up!" Luke snaps, stroking the newly healed skin of his face. "Just shut up! You didn't want fun! You were gonna _kill_ me! You've got no right to feel sorry for yourself! You've got no right-!"

A long, drawn out gurgle is the only answer he gets. The human dies there in the shadows of the overpass, ruined body giving up at last. Luke's won the argument and the fight as well, but even with the warmth of another's life hot and thick inside him he still feels cold and frightened.

There's just something really wrong with what he's done.


	3. Chapter 3

You can never really tell what'll happen when you feed an animal vampire blood, especially not for long enough periods to create a ghoul. A human is nice and straightforward - they get a bit stronger, a bit faster, and their bodies cease to age as long as they get their monthly dose. But for whatever reason animals _mutate_.

There are half a dozen ghouled dogs living at the fon Fabre manor. They'd started out as dobermans but now they're bigger than they should be, with glittering emerald eyes and jagged whip tails, and their razored teeth spill out of their mouths in a way that has more in common with sharks than any kind of canine.

They're smart, too, uncannily so. And the smartest of them all, the fastest and the cleverest, is Repede.

Guy finds him sprawled under the enormous magnolia tree at the front entrance, a big, battered dog with its left eye closed forever by a jagged scar, its favourite bone -a much-chewed human radius- clamped between its teeth.

It glares at him sullenly as he comes closer, and he's gotta grin, guessing at the source of Repede's bad mood. "Our mysterious intruder's song got you, too, huh?"

Repede lays back his ears and grumbles.

"Don't worry," says Guy. "No-ones blaming you dogs. That song was packing some serious power. It got everyone, even Van and Her Ladyship."

A tilt of the head and a curious whine is his answer.

"Van says he was the target, but that's not our problem. Luke's gone missing."

The reaction to this would have been unnerving if Guy wasn't so used to Repede: the dog gives him a long, measuring stare.

They're old allies, he and Repede, and even older enemies. The dog is the last of the original pack that had once guarded the manor, before the lady had taken to making the dogs ghouls. He alone had survived the original attack and kidnapping of Luke, and had managed to lead the search parties to him despite the vicious wound that had closed his left eye. Her Ladyship had rewarded him the only way she could, and Repede has been the alpha dog of the manor ever since.

And he'd known Guy for an enemy the moment they first met.

"I had nothing to do with it," Guy assures him, voice soft so they won't be overheard.

He'd had to use the most of his abilities as a vampire during that first meeting, using the tricks his Sire had taught him to push his will at the dog and force Repede into obedience. It hadn't really worked - the techniques are meant more for humans and Guy's always been better at the more physical stuff, and Repede himself is smart enough, strong enough, to resist. But it had been enough to keep Repede from doing anything other then growl unhappily, and watch Guy unceasingly with that single, poison-green eye.

Repede stares at him a bit longer, measuring the truth of his words, and then huffs a slight bark. Rises to his feet and shakes himself, making his heavy chain collar clink, and then trots past Guy and toward the manor's gate. He looks back at Guy over his shoulder, bone hanging out the side of his mouth like a toothpick and tail wagging slowly.

"Thanks, Repede. Let's go bring that idiot back to where he's safe."

Repede barks happily and they trot off to find the trail, unified once more by what had turned them from enemies to allies: Luke.

* * *

><p>Natalia is sitting with Prince Ingobert in his sleek, executive corner office when he gets the phone call.<p>

They're going over the legal manoeuvring he's planning. There's been a grass-roots movement in the city for better schools, but right now Ingobert needs the city council to focus their attention on industry instead. They've been having some unexpected difficulty herding their political puppets in the right direction, though. Something's been taking out their go-betweens and pet blackmailers, stirring up the police, and generally getting the populace to take more notice than it should of the true state of things.

"Susanne," Ingobert greats his caller, warmth in his voice.

Natalia keeps her face carefully neutral. Despite everything that's happened, her Sire is still attached to his once-consort, Susanne fon Fabre. Natalia isn't sure how she feels about it, not with how the Ventrue Primogen swings so unexpectedly between her old easy grace and that strange, clinging dependence on her Seneschal and . . . and . . .  
><em><br>__Luke,_she sighs to herself, the memories of his serious green eyes, his frown of concentration, the fall of his deep scarlet hair rising up inside her once again. Her heart feels heavy in her breast, and loss makes her feel hollow once more: the Luke of her memories is gone, gone, gone, even if his body remains.

The amnesia took everything away from him. All his years of study, all his force of personality, the way he walked and talked . . . their time together.

And now, well. He's just- It's just-

There's just something _wrong_with him now, something beyond the loss of memory.

"Taken again?" Ingobert blurts, and Natalia is abruptly shaken out of her musings.  
><em><br>__It can't be . . ._

"No? I see. Yes. What? I've never heard of anything like that. Hmm. Yes, of course. Yes. Don't worry, Susanne, you'll have my support. We simply can't leave something like this uninvestigated. Besides, I'm fond of the boy, too."

It is. Luke. They can only be talking about Luke.

Natalia bites her lip and tries to force iron discipline to keep from fidgeting. Her fingers twist and knot in her lap. _I'm such a hypocrite, criticizing Susanne for her dependencies when I can't even keep control of myself. Luke. . . what is it about you that makes us all so weak?_

Ingobert hangs up the phone. "I can see by your face that you've already guessed what that was about."

"Yes, Sire. Luke- Luke's been taken again."

"Close. It seems someone managed to break into Susanne's manor to attack Van. Apparently, the intruder used some strange power to put everyone in the compound to sleep, but Luke somehow resisted it and drove her off. From what they can tell he ran after her and is now lost in the city."

Her mind grapples with the information, trying desperately to prioritize it the way it should be and not how her heart wants it. The pause is too long but she manages to save face by blurting out the right question: "They put all of Susanne's manor to sleep? That's at least twenty people! And Susanne- And Van- What kind of power is that?"

Ingobert stern features ease as he smiles faintly at her. She feels warmed by the approval. He says, "I don't know, which is why I'm so concerned, especially since it was used in such a blatant violation of our Traditions."

Natalia nods solemnly. Bad enough that an elder vampire's territory was violated, but to have it done simply to attack a third party! "If they're willing to violate an Elder's territory, they're probably willing to ignore the neutrality of the Elysium, or even violate the Masquerade. And if they try again in a spot where humans could see, or if they take out someone in the upper echelons . . . "

"Exactly. That paranoiac Mohs is just looking for any excuse to start a purge, and I've got Peony breathing down my neck about how I've been managing politics. Worse, I'm not entierly sure how far I can trust Goldberg with this. Being the Sheriff is starting to make him a bit too independent." Ingobert sighs and threads his fingers through his silver-gilt hair. "We're just lucky that Susanne's taken her Seneschal as consort and that he's got her well in hand. I can't afford any more unrest on the financial front at this point."

"I didn't know she'd taken him as consort-!"

"Then _pay attention_, Natalia!" Ingobert barks. His sheer _power_shoves her bodily back in her chair, makes the enormous office windows creak and groan as his eyes blaze and his fangs flash and he drops the facade of fatherly mentor to shows his true face: the vampiric ruler of a city. "You know better than to let such things go unnoticed, especially when it comes to Susanne! Did you think your responsibilities ended just because you lost your hold on Luke?"

Natalia is very, very careful in how she answers: "My apologizes, Sire." Her face is serene. Her voice is cool water. "I won't make the same mistake again."

He glares at her a moment longer, evaluating her resolve, her right to be his Childe. Her right to life. "Make me a suggestion," he commands. A familiar test.

"Let me help with the search for Luke."

"Natalia. . . "

She dares to interrupt: "Please, Sire, hear me out. I have good reasons for this."

For a moment she thinks she's pushed too hard, that she'll be punished for such daring, and she makes herself accept that possibility. Better a bloody nose from her Sire now to teach her to properly read a mood than to make the same mistake with a less tolerant Elder.

Ingobert drums his fingers on the desktop. "Speak."

"You're correct that I've been rather remiss in my duties concerning Susanne's coiterie, but I am still on good terms with the household, and with Luke's caretaker in particular. They'll welcome my aid instead of resenting the interference. Because of that I'm also more likely to be privy to any discoveries they might make concerning the strange powers of the assassin. Besides," she adds thoughtfully, "there's always the chance I might be able to cultivate some new alliance in Susanne's household while I'm visiting. And- and I need more real world experience," she finishes in a rush. "I'm honoured that you've permitted me to aid you with your politics, but I've yet to truly try to make my way in the wider scope of the city. I need that experience if I'm to be of true use to you in the vampiric political field. I need to know our people."

Ingobert nods slowly. The force of his power eases, and he becomes a caring father once more. "All of this is true. Very well, Natalia. I grant my permission. Currently I know of two search parties - Van and Guy. You may chose either one to join. Use what resources you require and report back to me regularly."

"Yes, Sire. Thank you."

* * *

><p>The night doesn't last forever. As such every vampire is used to working on a tight schedule, and Natalia even more so as the Prince's personal aide. She's got a change of clothing stashed in a locker of the building's gym, and she's quick to shuck her expensive blue skirt suit and change it out for more practical city wear of black yoga pants and a brown hoodie.<p>

"Guy? It's Natalia," She awkwardly juggles her BlackBerry as she multitasks speaking and unclasping her pearl earrings. "Yes, I'm up to date. I'll be joining you."

_"Uh, Miss Natalia, that's really not necessary-"_

The earrings go into one of her pumps, as does her delicate pearl pendant. "The Prince wishes to offer his aid in the search," she says, effectively cutting off that line of protest. She shoves her feet into her white hightops.

_"Then shouldn't you go with Van?"_Guy tries desperately.

"Mister Grants has his own resources to call on and has no need of my assistance. And as for the _real _reason you don't want me along," she continues mercilessly as she checks her hair in the tiny locker mirror, "your little phobia is you own problem, not mine. Deal with it."

_". . . yes, Ma'am."_

"Where are you?" She closes the locker and snaps home her combination lock, and then she's hustling out of the change room and down the hall toward the garage.

_"At the corner of Melbourne and Highland. We're up on a rooftop so I can't give you the exact address."_

"Who's 'we'?"

_"Sorry. I've got Repede with me."_

"So we're going by foot and tracking him that way? Very well. What direction are you going?"

_"East, toward the train yards."_

She stumbles slightly at the news. The train yards are contested territory, and rife with gangs of all description. It might not have been a problem for Luke in the past, but now, as he is. . .

She doesn't let her sudden chill of anxiety reach her voice. "I'll have my driver drop me off at Bread's Bread, then. We can meet up and continue on from there. Phone me to let me know if his trail changes direction."

_"Yes, Ma'am."_

"Good. I'll see you there." She hangs up and then pages her driver.

* * *

><p>Natalia's never been one to let the grass grow under her feet. Guy and Repede might have a head start on her, but they're only waiting a few minutes before she's rattling her way up the curlicue of the bakery's fire escape.<p>

"Repede. It's good to see you again," she says in a warm, smooth voice. "And you as well, of course, Guy." She flashes him a lovely smile.  
><em><br>_"Thanks. Wish it was under better circumstances, though," he answers.

She sighs. "Agreed. But I'm sure that we'll solve the problem quickly with the three of us working together. We're quite the group, after all," she says cheerfully. "Repede is unquestionably the best tracker, and you've known Luke since he- well-" she falters. Rallies: "For years. And I've my own resources to call on to help our search."

She gives him another one of those demure smiles, soft and sweet, and despite himself Guy feels his heart warm. His bizarre phobia aside, he's always been a sucker for a pretty lady, and Natalia definitely falls into that category. Her short gold hair is luminous in the hazy night, her slender form too clean and too young in those tight black pants and her brown hoodie. Butterflies in teal and silver are printed across her front, and their dazzling wings echo the sweep of her long, thick lashes, her wide malachite eyes. She looks no more than twenty, should look out of place on the bakery rooftop surrounded by the scattering of pigeon shit and litter, but she fits, somehow. She feels _right_.

He knows what she's doing, of course. He can feel the gentle pressure of her power, a soft, golden aura that shimmers in the air around her and reaches out with ephemeral tentacles to slide its way into his brain and coax him to trust, to confide, to obey. It's extremely subtle -she's got a very light, very skillful touch to her power- but Guy's alert for its nudge, and wards himself against it.

He's very, very careful not to show it. For years now he's presented himself as a clanless vampire, someone abandoned by his Sire and dependant on Her Ladyship Susanne for patronage and protection. Vampires like that are too ignorant to know the trick that Natalia is using, and their blood is to thin, too weak to give them the power to resist.

So instead he smiles his brightest and says, "Well, we'd better get goiEARGH!"

She's in his space! She's in his space, in his space, in his space, she could _touch him_, two feet away as she's come closer to pet Repede or something he doesn't know oh my god what if she touches him? What if she comes closer and he feels her skin on his and his bones shiver just at the thought and she's frowning at him, annoyed.

"Drat. I thought I'd managed to counter it this time. Honestly, Guy. This phobia of yours is truly something else."

"Please get away, please get away, please, please, please!"

"You've known me for years. You'd think-"

Repede's low growl shakes the air like thunder, choking them both to silence.

". . . Repede?" Guy whispers, not daring to raise his voice and risk distracting the dog. "What's up?"

A sudden, sharp '_crack!'_splits the muggy night air, too crisp and too clear for the hazy night atmosphere.

The three of them stiffen, their heads turning as one to the air conditioning unit to their left, where plastic bags have collected and matted in a corner, except those plastic bags have cracked open like a shell and something is wiggling out of it and toward them.

Some _things_.

Two, six, fourteen . . . they spurt out of the remains of the plastic bags like pus from a wound, gelatinous white somethings that ooze across the rooftops toward them, leap through the air toward them-

Guy catches the first one as it flies at his face and regrets it immediately. "_Gyah!_It burns!" The next one hits his chest and he can feel it scrabbling up his shirt toward his throat. Another hits his knee. Another his hip.

"My eye!" Natalia gasps, clawing at her face. "It's trying to crawl inside! Oh my god! Oh my _GOD_!" She manages to rip it from her face in a great arc of blood but there are more skittering up her ankles and Repede isn't doing much better.

And the wounds _smoke_, burning with an acid that tears through flesh as if they were simple humans. Guy feels his hand turning to useless twists as the thing eats through his tendons, through his bones.

_Damn it! At this rate we'll all die . . . and we won't even know what hit us!_

More of them are pouring out of that nest. Repede collapses to his belly and they all surge toward him, and Natalia's not doing much better.

_If we're gonna have a chance in hell we've gotta stop these things at the source!_Guy thinks, frantic. He grits his teeth and feels his lips pull back as his fangs drop out to their full, savage length, and his blood roars in his ears as he draws on the strength of his clan, lets it drive through his muscles and push him forward in a lightening surge so fast the creatures are sheered from his body, his shirt and jeans rip as the air cuts them, and his heel smashes into the shell of plastic bags.

Like some enormous zit it pops from his blow, puss and white acid ooze spattering everywhere.

Just for a moment, the surviving creatures hesitate.

It's enough. Natalia's aura flares, but this time it's the searing white-gold of rage, and she rips the creatures off herself, heedless of the blood and pain, and crushes them in her bare hands, ichor dripping from between her fingers. The power in her blood rises up and heals the wounds until there's nothing but smoking rents in her clothing.

Together, she and Guy lunge for Repede, swatting the things from his flanks and crushing them beneath their sneakered feet. Soon the rooftop is spattered with gore and there is nothing but a bare handful of the things left.

Repede staggers to his feet, bleeding and panting, wobbly but still strong enough to stand at their sides.

The creatures hesitate once more.

This time, they flee.

They scatter in all directions, and Guy swears bitterly. "At this rate we won't even figure out what the hell they were! We need at least _one_ of 'em alive! Repede! _Fetch!_"

Repede fetches.

And the thing is, he's not a dog anymore. Not really. Not after seven years of blood from an elder vampire, after seven years of living along side of Luke and watching him learn, of learning along side with him. He's seen Guy and Natalia crush the things to kill them, felt the acid burn of them on his flesh and knows he can't just bite them if he wants them alive, if he wants to stay unharmed.

But he does have another another option.

It's awkward. It's unpracticed. But the bone he's chewed for years -the bone of the man who took his eye, the bone he'll keep in his mouth till death- is sharp as any knife now. And its slender point jabs right through one of the awful monsters with a single twist of his head.

It shrieks and flails, and the acid makes the bone scorch and smoke, but it seems to have been weakened enough that after a few more twitches it goes limp.

He trots back to Guy and Natalia and they come close, Natalia rubbing the blood from her healed eye, Guy scraping the gunk off his sneakers as he walks, his ruined hand slowly healing. They kneel down beside Repede and peer at the thing he's got skewered. Jerk back in shock.

"What the hell-?" Guy sputters.

"It's- It's an eye," Natalia gasps. "Well. Sort of?"

And it is. Sort of. A wet mass of translucent white slime that drips puss, the iris and pupil bright blue and deep black like the markings of some poisonous frog. But it's not round as it should be, more oval, more elongated . . .

And the two dangling veins twitch and rise up and they're _eyestalks_, and below it there's an obscene sucker mouth and the thing is like some enormous slug, staring at them, its mouth working even now in desperate hunger.

Natalia's voice is curiously high pitched, yet empty of all emotion: "It's disgusting."

"Yeah," Guy agrees.

". . . what is it?"

"I dunno."

They watch it twitch on Repede's bone, squirm slowly and then, suddenly, crack. Just as if it was made of glass.

It shatters, pieces raining down onto the rooftop and then dissolving into smoke, leaving only the scorching on the bone to prove it had even been. And all around them it's the same thing: the ichor of the eye-slugs they'd crushed dissolving into mist.

"Do you know that the Primogen of the Tremere has been after my Sire to look into the killings of more than three dozen fledgeling vampires in the past thirteen years?" Natalia says. Her voice is still pitched too high, but it's steady, even. "He kept insisting they were suspicious because the fledgelings would die in the oddest places, supposedly without trace of anything that could have killed them. Ingobert kept brushing him off because he thought Mohs was looking for an excuse to start a witch hunt. After all, we only had Moh's word that the killing were linked. They could have been caused by regular scuffles over territory."

Guy frowns. "You think they've been preying on the weak before now, huh? I can see it. If we'd been any weaker they'd have had us for lunch. Literally. Look at Repede's sides: there are bite marks."

They trade sober looks.

"I'll call my Sire to let him know about this. Please give some of your blood to Repede so he can heal faster. We need to find Luke as quickly as possible."

There's no smile on Guy's face anymore. "Agreed."

* * *

><p>The draw on Asch's soul has gone from the ever-present gentle tug to an insistent, aching pull. He hurts inside, ears ringing and eyes too sensitive for even the dark of the city's bad quarter.<p>

He knows what it is, of course. How can he forget after waking up in that lab and being presented with that obscene creature, that puppet Dist patched together?

_Snips and snails and puppy dog tails~_ the lunatic had carolled, dumping locks of Asch's hair into a vat along with mangled animal corpses. _That's what little boys are made of!_

It had been pulled from that tank, naked and dripping, and its eyes were blank, its face was blank, it didn't even have a scent to it.

Dist had called it 'Luke'.  
><em><br>__My name and my face, and now it's on my streets. _He snarls soundlessly._ What the hell are you doing, Van? It's three years too early for you to start moving. _

He wrestles with himself, with his hate and his fears and his need to know. There's sharp boundaries to what he can and can't do, and he's not sure where this falls. He's not sure if it's worth it to find out.

In the end he goes. Reluctant and seething, but he goes.

These streets are his hunting ground; he knows their twists and bends well after seven years. Even better, the gangs here all answer to Fujibayashi-gumi, the local yakuza group, and with the violet blossom of their mon on the back of his black motorcycle leathers he's recognized as one of their associates. So the people here stay out of his way and out of his business, carefully not looking at him as he speeds his red motorcycle through stoplights and counter-flow on one-way streets.

He follows the pull past the sick light of neons into back streets cobwebbed with shadows, with potholes scattered like acne across their pavement face and store windows stripped by security bars. It takes him to the old meat packing plant on the very edge of Fujibayashi territory, and so to the very edge of his leash. He parks his bike, yanks off his helmet, and warily searches the area. There, in the dark between two overflowing dumpsters, he finds it.

His mind scrabbles weakly to take in the sight rationally, but it's powerless against the sudden surge of rage inside him at the sight of the creature. Huddled in on itself, its clothing torn and bloodied, its hair damp with beer and sparkling with broken glass, it should be pitiful. Instead the beast that's his rage claws at his control, demanding he attack that cowering figure, use his own clawed fingers to rip from it the mask it's made of his face.

Its eyes - _his_ eyes, in _his_ face - are wide, pupils huge and dark in the thin ring of emerald, and its fangs are out and cutting into its plush lower lip. It looks like a child, makes _him _look like a child by extension, and he hates it for that, too.

"What are you?" it whispers. "Why- why do you look like me?"

His hand whips out to grab it by the front of its ruined tracksuit. "Shut up," he hisses. "If you in any ways value the sick joke you call a life then _shut. up._"

It quiets only for a moment, just long enough for him to drag it to its feet and start it toward his bike.

Then it asks, " . . . are you my brother or something?"

He hits it so hard and fast he surprises even himself.

It's a limp mess on the ground, out cold. Had it been human it would have been dead. As it is it's got an two inch-deep welt in one temple.

_Well, I suppose that resolves the issue of how I'll keep it on my bike._

He gathers it up into his arms, wrinkling his nose at the stink of alcohol and garbage, old blood and human fear. . . .

Pauses.

He scents the air again, hesitantly. Leans in and tries again. Under all the muck there's something else, something warm and animal that-  
><em><br>_He jerks back._ It has a scent? But . . . but it didn't . . . _He leans in again, buries his nose in its hair and breath deep. Yes. It has its own scent.

Not his.

Its own.

He swallows once. Twice. This artificial monster should smell of nothing. Certainly Sync is still blank of any such thing. So how can-? And why isn't it the same as his own?

The first currents of unease start below the waters of his hate.  
><em><br>__I can figure it out later, _he decides. _Right now I need to get this thing back to my rooms before anyone sees us together and starts asking questions._

He stuffs his helmet down onto the thing's head and tucks its dirty hair into its tracksuit. Then he drags it over to the bike and hauls it up onto the seat. He doesn't trust his ability to keep it falling off from behind - sets himself behind it instead so he can keep it upright and up close as he drives.

He revs the bike into life and takes off.


	4. Chapter 4

Asch comes at the Nam Combanda Bar from behind by way of the old parking lot, hoping to avoid as many people as possible. He's in luck - the parking lot's deserted of the usual druggies or drunks, so he's able to ease his motorcycle up the ramp of the loading dock without witnesses.

From there things are a bit tricky, juggling bike and unconscious creature and the heavy iron door, but he gets inside without much issue and locks the door behind him, wheeling the bike into the bar's back room, the creature draped over its seat like a sack of rocks.

"Asch? Izzat you?" Urushi toddles in from the bar's office. He's a squat, fat man with a bristling beard and gang tattoos who might have looked imposing except for his tendency to wear sweater vests and button-ups. He, along with the other two mortals running the bar, are the only real allies Asch has these days. "You shoulda called, I'da opened the door for ya. Who's that?"

"No-one you need to concern yourself with. I'm taking it downstairs to my rooms," says Asch. "Make sure I'm not disturbed."

"Sure, sure. Wouldn't wanna _interrupt _anything."

Asch scowls at the comment but lets it go for now. He props his motorcycle in its usual corner by the boxes of pretzel bags and beernut packets, hauls the stinking creature over his shoulder, and makes his way down the long flight of stairs to his basement apartments.

He feels infinitely better once his door shuts behind him, the lock automatically clicking into place. Not that it'd keep his three allies out, crooks that they are, but it's soothing to know the bar's drunks can't just barge in on him while looking for the bathrooms.

It's cool down here, and though it isn't the luxurious quarters due to him by bloodright or the penthouse suite Van would have him in, it's clean and it's comfortable and it's his. Paid for with his money, decorated to his own, spartan tastes.

His boots are loud on the wooden floor. He'd planned to just dump the creature in a corner someplace, but hadn't really thought beyond that. And now that he's here, the idea of the filthy thing on his clean floors makes his nose wrinkle, his lip curl.

So instead he carries it to the bathroom and dumps it in his tub. He yanks the helmet off -he'll have to wash that later- and tosses it aside. He examines the welt on the side of the creature's head and grunts sourly. The thing is almost healed. It'll wake up soon.

The problem with dealing with this creature is that Asch has no idea what its strengths may be, what its limits are. It's not a true vampire so he can't simply chop its legs off and then stick them back on later, and the limits Van placed on him when he bound Asch with blood means Asch can't experiment and risk doing anything permanent to the creature.

Like killing it, much as he aches to.

It's starting to stir. He doesn't have much longer to decide.

"To hell with it," he snarls. There's an easy way of doing this: a few swallows of his blood should be enough to lay a basic blood binding and make the thing pliant to his orders. He makes a quick gash in his wrist with his fangs, and holds the blood to the creature's lips.

Its reflexes kick in. It bites him.

"_FUCK!_" he howls. "What the- what-" he gasps, a purely mortal reaction to the pain that sears up his arm like a snake of fire and sinks its ravaging fangs right into his heart.

But even worse is the horrific sensation of something groping inside him. Fingers of flame seem to brush at his very soul, reaching and reaching, deeper into his core to take . . . _something _. . . from him. He fights it, terrified, tries frantically to pry the creature off his wrist but can't budge it for the pain, snarls and sobs like a wounded animal and finally attacks.

His fangs sink into its throat - his throat- their throat because they suddenly form a perfect circle, blood into blood into blood again, and it's all the same because they are the same creature, molten agony a loop connecting them.

It whimpers under him, and he understands, for the first time, how fragile this creature truly is: a wavering candle, not even truly a soul.

Its got Van's marks all over it.  
><em><br>__This . . . this is what Van's wasted seven years on? This graceless fake?_

He can see the chains Van has bound it with, the same ties of blood and sex that had once held Asch so tight, that even now after all his years of fighting manage to hold him still. It makes his skin crawl to realize Van has treated them alike, himself and this half-alive thing, and his fury makes him shove it backwards in the tub, climbing on top of it to bury his fangs in deeper, heedless of the pain.  
><em><br>__Steal my life and my Sire and my name and my face and you steal my fucking _rape _too? You worthless piece of shit give it back, give it back, give it back to me!_ _Leave me something of mine! _He is a thrashing mess, ripping at its body with his fingers, tearing away the tracksuit to get at its skin to get at its flesh to get at its core to take back what has been stolen from him. _Mine! Mine, mine, MINE!_

And something answers him.  
><em><br>__Yours?_

But it is fleeting and faint, and he is dizzy from his blood looping out and back around into his veins, sick from contact with this perversion of life, and he tares himself away. Frustrated. Exhausted.

He sits slumped in the tub, the creature pinned beneath him, still feeding greedily from his wrist. He lets it for just a moment longer before trying again to yank his arm away. "Let go!"

It does.

Awake now, the wounds on its chest from Asch's crazed attack slowly healing, blood dribbling from the corner of its mouth. It stares at him with wide, wide green eyes, with something like fear and something like horror in its expression. "You-"

"Shut up," Asch cuts it off. He clambers off of it and out of the tub, motorcycle leathers creaking. "You've a half hour to get cleaned up before I make you answer some questions." He reaches out and viciously twists the shower knob. The creature yelps and flails as frigid water blasts down on it. "Don't bother putting those filthy rags back on. I'll get you something to change into so you don't mess up my apartment."

Either the attempt at binding it with blood worked or it's just too stunned stupid to protest. Whatever the case, it stays in the shower as Asch storms out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

_Here's hoping that thing's been programmed with the ability to wash itself_, he thinks bitingly.

The bar's washing machines are in his apartment, and since the humans always leave stuff behind Asch is sure he can find something of Urushi's or York's for the creature to wear.  
><em><br>__It's taken everything else. Like hell I'm letting it have my clothing, too._

* * *

><p>The hot water is like a blessing as it cascades over Luke's hair. He's tossed his ruined clothing away and now stands naked under the water, letting it wash the grime and blood from his body.<p>

He's set the water slightly too hot. The bite of it is the only thing that seems real right now. The magical song that put everyone to sleep, the woman trying to kill Master Van, the race through the city, the fight with the humans - he has to struggle to convince himself these things are real, that he's actually here outside the manor in a strange bathroom that belongs to someone who looks _exactly like him_.

His own face staring at him. And when Luke had asked him if he was his brother . . .

He rubs his temple, still feeling the ache in his head. The guy had hit Luke with full vampiric strength.  
><em><br>__What is it about people outside the manor and hitting me?_

_"j'st wanted s'm fun,"_ whispers a memory. _"J'st wanted-"_

A shudder wracks its way through Luke's body. He feels cold despite the hot spray and he can't understand why. Can't understand why he feels so off-balance. They attacked him first and cut his face, and beyond all that humans are _food_.

They're not even great company. The manor is full of them - obedient servants who bow and call him Master Luke to his face, but giggle and gossip behind his back and think he's retarded. They're vicious and petty and always looking for any way to scrape together a bit more power to compensate for how weak they are.

And yeah, maybe all vampires were once human, even Luke himself, but he doesn't _remember _that. Might as well have never been human.  
><em><br>__So why am I . . ?_

It had been crying.

It had been crying, the first time he'd ever seen a human cry, and the memory of it keeps making him remember his own tears. How achingly sad he'd been because he couldn't make his Mother smile. How scared he'd been, how _terrified_, because he'd gotten locked in the cellar and it was dark, dark, dark . . .

_Was it scared to die?_

Without the dark magic of a vampire's Kiss, a bite to the throat is painful. The only human Luke had ever tried to feed on before now had screamed until it choked.  
><em><br>__Was that one scared, too?_

He nibbles his lower lip. Slowly begins to wash himself. Turns the idea over and over in his mind, still unsure about how he feels about it all.

* * *

><p>The apartment is a stark, minimalist place with bare wooden floors and clean white walls, a couple of shelves with magazines and books, a desk and a single chair. No windows. No signs of a bedroom. Luke imagines this mysterious copy of him just lets himself lie on the floor when the sunrise forces him into torpor.<br>_  
><em>_And he's probably got that ugly scowl on his face even when he's unconscious, _Luke thinks, but it doesn't have the bite it should because whoever this guy is he looks exactly like Luke and his smell is ash and leather and the taste of his blood lingers in Luke's mouth like hot, hot coals and when he moves it makes Luke's head spin because it's all just so _familiar_.

The Other shoves his hair back from his face into a messy fall and it's like Luke's watched him do it a thousand times. The way he's watching Luke out of the corner of of his eye -green eyes, exactly the same shade as Luke's- and the thinning of his lips. Just seeing him Luke knows this person will only use one hand to drag the chair over, will sit on it properly with back rigidly straight and legs crossed at the knee and he does, he _does_, exactly as Luke thought he would. Exactly as Luke _knew_he would.

"Sit there," snaps the Other, and points to the empty corner he sits facing.

Luke goes. But when he walks he swerves across the floor, has to clutch at the wall for balance as he eases down because his head is spinning.

He feels hot and sick. He feels like the floor beneath him is crumbling away.

He feels like he did back at the overpass, with his footprints charred into the asphalt and the dead turning to slag around him and the terrible, horrible knowledge that something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

". . . thanks for the clothing," he tries, fingering a seam on his borrowed jeans.

"Shut up."

They sit there staring at each other for what seems like hours, Luke off-balanced and sick, slumped in the corner, the Other blazing eyes and mouth twisted into a vicious frown, arms crossed and legs crossed and hate boiling in the air around him.

The atmosphere is so tense that Luke actually yelps when the Other asks,

"Why has Van allowed you out of the manor early?"

Luke blinks a few times, frowns as he tries to puzzle that out. "What are you talking about? Master Van didn't let me out. I ran out on my own."

This is apparently so surprising it makes the Other lose his scowl, has him staring blankly at Luke as he repeats, "You . . . ran out on your own?"

"Yeah. I was chasing after some weird chick who broke into the manor and tried to kill Master Van. She put everyone else to sleep with a song so I was the only one who could go after her."

The Other goes back to frowning. "So you're out here by accident, then." He drums his fingers on his upper arm. Tilts his head - his long hair spills over his shoulder like a cascade of blood. "You said someone tried to kill Van? Who was she?"

Off balance or not, Luke is starting to get annoyed by the Other's attitude. Still, the memory of that hit to the head lingers, so he does his best to bite back his temper. "How the hell should I know? It was just some weird chick. She was kinda hot, I guess: long brown hair, big breasts. She came at Master Van with a wooden stake." He hesitates. "She was singing the whole time, and there was something really weird about it. Like the words were familiar even though I hadn't heard the song before."

The Other grunts at this and settles back in his chair. His gaze is distant and his scowl is fixed, and Luke takes advantage of the guy's lapsed attention to study him.

_Is this what Guy meant when he said my face might freeze in a scowl if I wasn't careful? _he wonders. He'd thought Guy was just joking around, but this person is seriously starting to make him wonder. _Well, if that's what I look like when I'm pissed no wonder Guy wanted me to smile more._

It's not so much that the Other is ugly. He couldn't be, not with Luke's face - it's not vanity, but simple truth to say that Luke and his mirror Other have lovely features, fine boned with high cheekbones and arching brows, enormous green eyes, straight nose and flawless pale skin. But there's an entier attitude of rage barely held in check, of deep contempt as he studies Luke in turn.

He holds himself completely different, too, military straight like the guards Mother keeps around the manor, head tilted to stare down his nose. He might as well have 'uptight asshole' printed on his forehead.

And yet.

And yet Luke really wants to touch him.

It makes him bite his lip, shift his weight, wrap his arms around himself. He doesn't understand it. But when the Other touched Luke in the bathroom his fingers had been like brands on Luke's skin, the weight of him on Luke's body like a heavy, warm blanket. Comfortable. Comforting.

Just who is this guy?

Finally, Luke can't stand it anymore. Asks again, "How come you look like me?"

The reaction is immediate, an audible _snap_ as the Other's teeth clench on air, his eyes literally glowing with fury. "Let's get one thing straight, you piece of shit," he growls. "You look like _me_, not the other way around. _I'm_ the original. _I'm_the one whose life and face were stolen!"

". . . what do you mean, 'original'?" says Luke's mouth while his brain whispers _no, no, no._

"I _mean _that you're a copy of me! What else could I- shouldn't you know this already? What has Van been teaching you?"

"Martial arts and dancing and-" Luke chokes back the rest of it, face flaming, eyes wide. He'd almost spilled it about Master Van's special lessons and he can't believe himself. He's never told anyone about that, not even Guy, because Master Van had said, _'This will be our secret, Luke.'_ He'd purred the words, really, in that deep, soothing voice, and his goatee had tickled against the skin of Luke's thighs. _'Just between the two of us. Master and-'_

"I know about the sex," The Other growls, his voice yanking Luke back to the present. "You were the practice run for what he did to me. I meant about what you are, why you're here. Don't tell me he just left you there without any clue about what your actual function was."

Luke shakes his head slowly, back and forth, back and forth. He's heard the words but they barely make sense - all he gets out of them is a sick feeling of dread at what else this dark mirror will say.

The Other's frown somehow gets even deeper. "Do I need to use smaller words?" To himself, "Dist said it might be retarded, but I didn't think it was this bad."

That Luke understands.

"Fuck you, asshole!" he flares. "If anyone here's got something wrong with their brain it's you. Who the hell ever heard of making copies of people? That's for bad movies and comic books! There's no way I'm some photocopy. . . I'm probably just your twin or something and you're pissed because Mother likes me better!"

_"Don't talk to me about my Sire!"_ the Other roars, and his power roars with him, flares up in the air around then and ignites. Blistering teal sparks firework around him, and balls of pure green witchfire blossom in a halo about his head, his eyes no longer glowing but incandescent, bright green pits that call, no, _command _that most elemental part of him: the fire in Luke's belly.

Heat flares up through Luke's veins, burning, searinging, blazing, an obediant dog to the Other. Flame pours from Luke's mouth in a spill of bright gold and orange, drips from the ends of his hair, and worst of all, glows so brightly inside the shell of him he can see it through his skin.

He is a web of flame glowing in the dimness of the basement. He is a thing of heat and fear cowering in a corner with smoke for his tears. And most of all, he is a slave to the chains of the Other's power.

"It's not true," he whimpers. "It's not!"

The Other's voice is flat as he speaks. "I don't time to deal with your stupidity. You're a tool - behave yourself." He stretches a hand heavy with power toward Luke. "Say it. Say 'I am a tool'."

The words come up into Luke's mouth like the flames did, just as hot, just as obscene. "I-" he fights against them. Tries to swallow them back. "I'm a-"

The musical sound of breaking glass interrupts them.


	5. Chapter 5

The little group follows Luke's trail across the city rooftops and back down to the streets, through the older shopping districts into the ghetto. Here the windows are barred, the asphalt ruined, every wall is tagged with gang signs and the downtown skyscrapers are castles of light, as distant and fantastic as a dream.

Repede guides them along, the two vampires following after, and they all stick close together in the shadows so no one can see the ruin the fight with the eye-slugs has made of their clothing. Or they would if Guy didn't keep cringing away anytime Natalia got closer then two feet. It irritates her, he can tell, but there's no help for it. As pretty as she is, as much as he respects -even sorta likes- her, she makes his skin crawl. His body moves away from her automatically, and her closeness makes it hard to concentrate on the heavy darkness draped around the neighbourhood, the silence as stifling and real as the humidity.

"The streets here are so empty," Natalia murmurs.

"Yeah."

She glances at him sidelong, eyes glinting through the heavy gold veil of her lashes in the flickering light of a nearby streetlight, the curve of her cheek gilded silver by the same. "You don't seem particularly happy about it. Wont this make our search easier?"

"Easier, maybe, but I don't like it. I know neighbourhoods like this, Miss Natalia. You don't get empty streets like this for any reason but bad ones. The whores have to stay out to make money so they can eat, the gangs have to defend their turf, and the homeless don't really have anyplace else they can go. For all those people to hide like this . . . something bad's got to have happened."

Repede glances back at them and whines in agreement, ears half-flattened.

Natalia hugs herself, an oddly human gesture for someone who's usually collected. "More of those monsters?"

"Hard to say. Since I don't even know what they were, I can't tell you if they could have shown up here."

Natalia frowns bitterly. "I wish I'd thought to use my phone take a picture of the one Repede caught. We could have taken it to Mohs - the Tremere always know more about these sorts of things."

"Mohs, really?" Guy lifts an eyebrow. "I didn't think he was on good terms with the Prince these days."

Natalia's voice is cold enough to freeze as she answers, "I don't think the Prince's relations are any business of yours."

"Ouch. Forgive me, my _Lady_. Guess I forgot my place."

It's all sarcasm and overblown manners, but Natalia chooses to take it at face value to make her point. "See that you don't do so again."

They walk in awkward silence a few blocks more, under clotheslines and down snaking allies, past boarded up doors and overflowing dumpsters. Guy watches the darkened windows and doesn't miss the dart of silhouettes, black on black, smells the heavy perfume of fear. Here and there he sees further clues to make him twitch: Graffiti left unfinished. Half-smoked cigarettes left to die on the sidewalk, a blasphemous waste in such a poor area.

And Natalia is sick from the smell of disease and garbage, of poverty and decay. She remembers the stories that got passed around in high school as kids tried to freak each other out: tumours found in chicken sandwiches, razors in Halloween candy. Seeing this place makes her want to gag as badly as those stories did because she knows the other clans will feed here and never mind what they're putting in their mouths. She glances sidelong at Guy again. He knows these places so well. Has _he _fed here? Did he get lice, or is he perhaps carrying some disease, some extra taint?

Repede noses around in broken glass and fetid beer, then trots down an alley. Then he hesitates at the other end and looks back at them. Nods his head in an unmistakably human gesture to urge them forward.

_That dog's getting way too smart_, Guy worries as he hurries to join him.

From here they can see an underpass, crumbled cement and asphalt, the pillars cracked and showing their rusted steel reinforcements. They can smell the stink of blood and ash and death. And they can hear the murmurings of the humans who've clustered about and stand guard on the site, guns and knives and chains all out and ready.

"Who are those thugs?" Natalia whispers.

Guy scans the crowd carefully. "Not sure. I think they're the local yakuza. They're all wearing the same kanji symbol. See it? It's purple."

"I thought you said the gangs had all deserted the area for the night!"

"Yakuza are a bit different from your average gang. They're more like mafia - organized crime."

"Really?" Natalia peeks out of the alley again, curious now. Her sire has kept her fairly sheltered from the organized crime aspect of his empire, telling her she had her hands full with legitimate business. Nevertheless, she'd had a chance to see one of the mafia Dons under the Prince's command, and she'd been impressed with his sleek businessman persona, the shadowy competence of his bodyguards, the heavy weight of power hanging about him.

These people, though, are utterly unlike those mafioso. They wear white suits and colourful shirts with popped collars, motorcycle leathers and heavy gang jackets, rumpled black suits with hightops. Their hair is spiked and coloured and slicked back, their eyes are either lined with khol or hidden with colourful sunglasses. They glitter with piercings, with human youth, with arrogance.

Natalia kind of likes them. They just look so _alive_.

"It looks like they're doing some sort of cleanup," she says, peering past the clutter of yakuza and glittery motorbikes. "I think I see bodies."

"Yeah." Guy frowns worriedly. "We'd better hope none of those bodies are yakuza, or we'll have a real mess on our hands getting Luke back the manor quietly. Yakuza hold grudges."

"Would they bother cleaning up if it wasn't their people?"

Guy shakes his head slowly. "I honestly don't know. These aren't my usual crowd."

Natalia nods, straightens up and starts fussing with her outfit. Her bloody hoodie she pulls off completely and tosses into a dumpster leaving her with nothing but a strappy little brown lace top. Guy very carefully ignores how he can see her white bra through it. She fusses with her hair and eyes him critically. "Wipe the gunk off your face and hang back. I'll take care of them. Come along, Repede."

She and the dog trot off toward the humans. For a split second Guy hangs back, annoyed once again by the attitude, by the assumption that he'll just follow along docilely, by the fact that she doesn't explain her plan.

_Ventrue_, he thinks disgustedly.

But she's as ignorant as Luke in her way, and as much as he hates the Ventrue attitude he knows there's nothing to gain by letting her go off alone. Besides, this is nothing compared to some of Luke's tantrums, so he hurries after her and hopes this wont explode in their faces.

The feel of her power is back, subtle gold shimmer that mortals can't see. He wonders how she'll spin this - to really have it work you have to direct the power, the way she tried to on the bakery rooftop by playing the teamwork card. She can't be thinking of seducing them, it's totally not her type of thing. So what-?

"Good evening!" she chirrups at the nearest pair of yakuza, one in a white suit with brilliant pink shirt and shades, the other in red leather pants and an electric blue buttonup. "My, it's a warm night out, isn't it? My brother and I wouldn't have left the house in this heat if we didn't have to walk our darling Repede."

The two yakuza look momentarily stunned, exchanging puzzled glances like they know something is off but can't quite place it.

"What- What're you doing here?" one of them ventures, eyebrows furrowed over his pink sunglasses.

Natalia's eyes are impossibly green, impossibly wide, impossibly innocent. "Why, we're walking Repede! I told you that already. What are you doing here? It's not normal for important men like you to be hanging about in such an ugly place."

The yakuza relax, and Guy has to smile as he seems Natalia's power take effect. Walking the dog, of course! Pretty, rich looking girls and their brothers always walked their dogs in the middle of the night in the bad part of town. Yeah. He starts scanning the area under the overpass now that they're closer, looking to see what these people are trying to hide. He can smell nothing but the stench of old fire, and that worries him.

The yakuza slouch comfortably, grin at Natalia. She can smell them past the suffocating scent of smoke and burnt asphalt: sweat from the hot night, hair gel, cologne. She finds she likes these things about them, too, little signs they preen themselves, take care of themselves.

"Nothing big," the one in the blue buttonup says. "Someone made a mess in our territory, so Big Sister's got us cleaning up the joint. 's bad for the neighbourhood to just leave it, you know? Can't have the cops start sniffing around."

"Of course," Natalia agrees sunnily. "They do cause such a fuss, don't they? Always poking their noses into other people's business. Who's Big Sister?"

"That'd be me!"

From out of the crowd emerges a stunning woman in black jeans and a tight white tanktop that do everything except conceal her voluptuous figure. Her black hair is up in a peacock's tail of a twist, her brown eyes are bright and snapping, and her bare shoulders are a masterpieces of swirling black and violet flower tattoos. She slaps the two yakuza upside the backs of their heads. "What the hell are you two doing? I told you to keep people away." She turns her suspicious gaze on Natalia. "Look, I dunno who you are, but this isn't the place for you, okay? It's dangerous here. So you and your brother take your dog and beat it."

Natalia spares just enough attention to make sure Guy is easing further past the line of distracted yakuza, investigating what they're trying so hard to hide. Then she turns all her focus back to this new obstacle. There's something strange about this human. "Dangerous? Really? Oh dear, I didn't know! We just let Repede lead us, and before we knew it we'd wound up here."

The woman boggles at her. "Are you nuts? This is the slums! Gang turf! You-" she, peers at Natalia, a frown tugging down the corners of her lush mouth and narrowing her eyes. Suspicious. "You . . ."

Natalia flexes her mental claws and ponders how best to deal with this. Whoever this lovely human is, she seems to be resistant to Natalia's power. Worse, she's got the scent of it herself - the tang of summer lightening, the woody scent of herbs.

"Please," she murmurs, deciding that harmless and confused is her best bet. "We really didn't know. We're actually new to the city- we lived out in the country before now, and we're just so used to letting Repede take the lead on our walks that we really didn't think it through." She clasps her hands before her, bats her eyelashes. "Could you maybe tell us how to get back to the better streets miss. . . "

"Sheena. Sheena Fujibayashi. And I don't like the idea of people like you and your brother wandering through our turf, especially with-"

"What the _hell_?" It's Guy's voice, raw with shock and fear, and Natalia acts without thinking, shoving past the human and her two guards.

Sheena spins in place, shouts, "Hey! Get back here!' and makes a grab for Natalia, but it's too late. She's already past and at Guy's side, and she's just as shaken as he is.

The area is . . . blasted. It's the only word that comes to mind since the underpass looks like nothing so much as a fragment of war torn turf. Strange, maybe, since the damage isn't really that severe, but there's a bleached, grey look to the place past the ash that coats everything that speaks of nothing but weathered bones and sterility brought on by searing flame.

"It's like someone burnt the life right out of this place," Guy murmurs.

Repede whines and presses himself briefly to Natalia's side before trotting forward and nosing the cement. Natalia hesitates. This place makes her feel dizzy, the smell of fire so strong here it makes her throat knot. Still, she needs to learn what she can here, so she inches forward to look. "What is it, Repede? I- oh. Oh my. Are those. . . foot prints? Burned right into the asphalt?"

Guy says, "Yeah," just as Sheena snaps, "No!"

The yakuza woman is with them now, seething, clenching her fists and her teeth. "No, they aren't footprints, okay? It's just a weird trick of the light. Now I'm going to give you two one last chance to get the hell out of our turf before the boys and me unleash a can of buttkick on your asses!"

"What could have caused this?" Natalia murmurs, oblivious to anything but her own, mounting horror. "This place is a _wasteland_. All the light, all the life has been stripped from it . . . it smells of nothing but ash. Nothing but _ash! _And Luke! Luke couldn't have been caught up in this, could he? Guy, what if-"

"Luke? Who's this Luke-" starts Sheena, but Guy interrupts her.

"We'll be leaving just as you asked. We're sorry to have troubled you, Miss. C'mon, Natalia, Repede. We've seen what we need to for now. "

"Wait! This is totally bogus. You said you were just walking your dog." And Sheena is reaching inside her jean pockets for something -a knife? Can't be a gun, it's too small- it's a long strip of paper with black swirls of kanji and Guy really doesn't like the look of it, doesn't like the pistols the other yakuza are beginning to draw either.

"Natalia!" he barks.

Natalia shudders, and slowly, slowly brings a hand to her face. Presses it to her forehead. "Guy . . ?" she murmurs. "Guy, there are bodies in the bushes. Bodies burnt to nothing but bones . . . What- what if one of them is Luke?" She stumbles forward into the gloom, other hand outstretched and eyes wide and mindless.

The hairs on the back of Guy's neck rise, his skin prickling. "Natalia! Snap out of it!"

Suddenly Repede is bristling along side him, ears back and teeth bared. Guy freezes, then stretches his senses to try and catch what's upset the dog, whirls to look back toward the darkened houses, the abandoned streets. Never mind the yakuza and their guns, Miss Sheena and her strange slip of paper, something _else_ is here!

Sheena herself jerks as if slapped. Whirls to stare off into the shadows Guy is peering into with eyes so wide the whites show all around her dark irises. "What-? I- I sense something! Something . . . oh god, it's _disgusting_! It's like it's puked inside my head! What the hell _is _that?"

The yakuza hesitate. "Big Sis?" one of them ventures.

"Never mind these guys, there's something _horrible _out there," she snaps. She barks one other word, guttural Japanese Guy can't understand but who's meaning is obvious when the paper in her hand suddenly blossoms with light, with power. It twists out of her hand and into the shape of a paper fox, growing larger and larger, standing between her and whatever is out there.

This is getting way too close to the edge of a fight, and that's something Guy and the others can't afford around human witnesses. Not if they want to avoid breaking the Masquerade by getting involved in a slaughter.

"Natalia," Guy tries again, backing toward her so that he doesn't have to take his eyes off the darkness. He can't see it even with his night-hunter's eyes, but turning his back is out of the question. Is it more of those eyeslugs? Is that what he's sensing? "Natalia!"

Oh god, he's going to have to touch her, her fine skin against his, womanflesh that makes him quake with sick terror but he can't leave her catatonic like this if it's another attack. His hand is out and before he knows it his palm is on her upper arm and his skin seems to crawl across his body as it tries to get away from her.

One of the yakuza suddenly stiffens. His face goes white, his gun drops from his hands, and he tips back his head and _screams. _Pure reflex: everyone looks his way.

He stops just as abruptly. He looks dazed, blank and hollow.

Something out in the blackness giggles.

"Fuck me," whispers one of the yakuza, and Guy silently agrees.

He forces his fingers to close around Natalia's arm and shakes her, hard and vicious and with his soul howling in horror. Only once and then he has to let go.

"I- Guy? Guy, what's going on?"

Thank god it's enough.

"We're under attack and we're getting out of here!"

"More of those eyeslugs?"

"I don't-"

Three of the yakuza suddenly start yowling, a horrific chorus of terror with no rational thought behind it or in their eyes, and the panic of their fellows at the sight and sound of it is all the chance that thing out there needed. It lunges out of the darkness like a streak of ink and hits the closes yakuza with a hissing splatter.

The man seems to wither before their eyes, skin shrinking over muscles, no, over bones as whatever it is sucks out his innards with supernatural ability, and he screams and screams as it does, a dissonant chorus to the other screaming yakuza, and Sheena shouts, "Corine! Go!"

Guy doesn't bother to see how the paper fox fairs against the whatever it is. "C'mon, Natalia! Now! Repede! Watch out back!"

The dog barks agreement. The yakuza behind them opening up with senseless gunfire that kills more of their own than it harms the creature itself. Sheena is swearing. And Natalia and Guy are getting the hell out of there because whatever the thing is attacking the yakuza (bloated creature, black on black and long like a snake but shaped all wrong, oh god is it someone's _guts?_ With teeth at either ends and. . .and. . ._) _it's not like the eye monsters from before.

Which means there's no telling what it can do, how many there are. . .

. . . and what else might be out there.

* * *

><p>"You let Suzanne's childe escape into the city? Do you have any idea what might be out there?" moans Anise, clutching her head. "If anything happens to him she'll go berserk, and you can bet she won't care that letting him out was an accident! If she ever figures out we were responsible she'll use her super-nasty lawyer pawns to buy the Chantry out from under us and make us all homeless and poor, or she'll finagle the council to exile us to some new city where we'll have to start from zero all over again, or she'll just call up her ex-boyfriend the Prince and have him call a Bloodhunt so everyone in his Court can get together and <em>murder us all!<em>"

Tear stands at attention by the office door, her fingers folded into tight fists, her head bent, her eyes downcast. "I know! I'm sorry. It's just, I was caught off guard. I didn't expect anyone to be able to resist the Berceuse, and when the creature countered my assassination attempt on Van I thought it best to retreat before anyone else woke and saw me. I didn't realize who he was until I had lost him and had time to assess the situation."

Regent Mohs swears softy, slapping his broad hands on the surface of his cherry wood desk and making papers flutter, silver fountain pens roll and the jar of scarlet coral shift uneasily in its cradle. "We sunk enough power into the ritual to amplify that song that it could bind two elder vampires and an entire household, but that so-called-childe resisted? How is that possible? Just what did Van have that lunatic create?"

Tear frets but says nothing. Anise, however, shifts around in her high-backed chair and toys with her goblin doll, frowning thoughtfully at its grinning face. "Dist made dolls and toys before he started working for Van. Maybe this fake-Luke is just a magic doll, like Tokunaga is. Maybe that's why the song didn't work - because dolls don't sleep."

"But we know it's not a doll," Tear objects. "It feeds, it bleeds. . . and anyways, it sleeps during the day like all vampires do."

Mohs shakes his head slowly. "No. True sleep is something quite different. A vampire's so-called slumber during the day is simply the body shutting down, and not something the Berceuse could evoke. Anise could be correct."

He drums his fingers on the desk. Finally says, "The situation is a complete mess. If we're to survive this we'll need to act quickly. I've no doubt Suzanne has already sent out search parties, most likely including that young Caitif, Guy, that she had nursemaiding the creature. Anise, see if you can join up with him. Use the usual deception and do your best to help him along. Above all we must find out how much they know about Tear's attack and try to get that creature back into containment. That fool Ingobert is already looking for any excuse to ignore my concerns. If he finds out we had anything to do with Suzanne's missing childe he'll stir up the other Primogene against us of his own accord, and never mind Suzanne's machinations. And if the creature should breach the Masquerade. . . "

"Will they really hold it against us, Regent? I'd have thought they'd try and destroy the childe instead," Tear asks.

"Foolish girl. Ingobert dotes on Suzanne, and it's only partly because of her financial holdings. For her sake he'll take no action against the false childe itself, but against the imbecile who let it lose? _Someone_ must pay." He leans back in his chair and scowls at the overflowing bookshelves, the filigreed incense burners that hang from the ceiling, the map of stars painted on the walls. This room is at the very heart of the Chantry, his seat of absolute authority, and still he has to make allowances for Ingobert's power. It grates on his soul, but even worse is the fear. So much had ridden on this gamble of an assassination. "Since you failed the assassination we can only assume Van is aware of our threat. We need information on just what he knows."

He pins Tear with a glare. "I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself. Go to Asch at the Nam Cobanda bar and inform him of the situation, then assist him in finding out exactly how much Van knows."

"Yes, Regent Mohs!" says Tear, bowing with military precision. "I'm sorry. I won't fail you again."


End file.
